WELCOME TO THE HVWC CALENDAR: home of all our upcoming readings, events and workshops. You can view by list or calendar (see right menu to choose). Click the colored tabs below to show only specific options. Our workshops run as multi-session series or one-day “intensives.” Note, we list the multi-session courses on the first day they meet only. The full dates of the session are described in the course descriptions. You would need to scroll back to the start date if you needed to enroll for something already underway. But do let us know if you want to join something in midstream since we need the blessing of the instructor. Questions? Email us.

Hudson Valley Writers Center

Located at the Philipse Manor Station (still an operating local stop on Metro-North Hudson East line, but we inhabit the historic building!) the Hudson Valley Writers Center offers unique classes and a versatile performance space.

NB: This is a six-week class that starts on Sunday September 15th and ends on Sunday October 20th. In this supportive class, you will gradually build your improvisational skills through a series of warmups, games and scenework. This class is for all levels. The focus is on supporting your scene partner, not on being funny. You will come away with stronger communication skills, particularly the ability to accept others' ideas and build on them as well as more insight about…

Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…

In Praise of The Praise Poem with JP Howard In this generative workshop, we will explore the praise poem, using multiple prompts to reimagine how to praise objects, people, emotions, art, poetry and of course ourselves. Questions explored as we work our way into these praise poems include: How is the personal political? How can we successfully weave our complicated pasts into these poems? What kind of poetic forms can we use to create praise poems? We will write a…

Sean Thomas Dougherty has written or edited over seventeen books, most recently The Second O of Sorrow (BOA Editions, 2018), winner of the 2019 Paterson Poetry Prize. His awards include a Fulbright Lectureship to the Balkans and an appearance in Best American Poetry. Known for his dynamic readings, he has performed at hundreds of venues, universities, and festivals including the Dodge Poetry Festival, the Old Dominion Literary Festival, and a tour across Albania and Macedonia sponsored by the US State Department. He…

Nickole Brown received her MFA from Vermont College, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She worked at Sarabande Books for ten years. Her first collection, Sister, a novel-in-poems, was published in 2007 by Red Hen Press and was reissued by Sibling Rivalry Press in October 2018. Her second book, a biography-in-poems called Fanny Says, came out from BOA Editions in 2015. She won Rattle's 2018 Chapbook Contest—To Those Who Were Our First Gods was…

Promoting Your First Book of Poems A practical talk about what it takes to get a book out into the world and the steps debut authors might need to take should their first publisher be an independent with limited marketing resources. For ten years Nickole Brown served at publicist for Sarabande, worked as publicist for Arktoi Books, is now Editor of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series. Jessica Jacobs worked as a Senior Acquisitions Editor at Wiley and now serves as…

We are now in the throes of a sixth mass extinction of plants and animals. Some call it the Antropocene, but biologist E.O. Wilson said it may be called by scientists and poets alike the Eremozoic, meaning “The Age of Loneliness.” If we take the worries of climate change and habitat destruction seriously—and in this lonely age potentially bereft of our fellow creatures—how can we help but feel an incapacitating sense of hopelessness that threatens to render things like literature…

So much of our self-definition rests on who we love and desire, as well as all those loves lost. But when trying to translate those honest sentences—"I love you," "I want you"—into a poem, so much of the meaning is lost in the sad static of cliché and unearned sentimentality. Drawing on the poems of writers like Dorianne Laux, Matthew Olzmann, and Sharon Olds, this workshop will help you ground your love poems in the rough, vibrant texture of the…

October 2019

This is a rare opportunity for east coast poets to study with one of the most established and revered poets of our time. Born in New York City in 1950, Arthur Sze is a second-generation Chinese American. Educated at the Lawrenceville School in Princeton, NJ and the University of California, Berkeley, Sze is the author of ten books of poetry, including Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014);The Ginkgo Light (Copper Canyon Press, 2009); Quipu (Copper Canyon Press,…

Submission Sundays is a free service to members of HVWC. Space is limited to 20 participants each session so please reserve your spot. One Sunday a month, 12:30-2:30 pm. Join host Mary Ann Scott for two hours of insider information on where and how to send your best work. Members can reserve a seat at the table of like-minded writers with a room of journals, advice on where to submit, moral and technical support, and everything you need to successfully…

Larry Weaner is an icon in the world of ecological landscape design, and now his revolutionary approach is available to all gardeners. Garden Revolution shows how an ecological approach to planting can lead to beautiful gardens that buck much of conventional gardening’s counter-productive, time-consuming practices. Instead of picking the wrong plant and then constantly tilling, weeding, irrigating, and fertilizing, Weaner advocates for choosing plants that are adapted to the soil and climate of a specific site and letting them naturally evolve over…

Please join us for our warm and welcoming Open Write Nights, now at an easier-to-remember regular recurring monthly spot of Second Saturdays! Your hosts Michelle Thomas and Cassie Cartaginese will facilitate an evening of generative writing and community building at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. Prompts will be offered, refreshments served (that includes wine). Stories swapped. $10 for non-members; free for members (will be deducted at checkout when you log in). Become a member here.

Anthologies are a terrific way for both established and emerging writers to have their work printed in widely read collections. In this talk writer and editor, CMarie Fuhrman will discuss how editors choose, organize and develop an anthology and give tips for preparing and submitting your work and increasing your chances of being published. CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems (Floodgate 2020) and co-editor of Native Voices (Tupelo 2019). She has published poetry and nonfiction in multiple journals including High Desert Journal, Yellow Medicine Review,…

NB: This is a one-day Master Class, capped at 17 students. Slots will fill quickly so please register now if you want a spot. Patricia Marx is a staff writer for the New Yorker and a former writer for Saturday Night Live and Rugrats. Her two novels (Him Her Him Again The End of Him and Starting From Happy) were Thurber Prize Finalists. Her children’s book Now Everybody Really Hates Me was the first and only winner of the Friedrich…

You know those spells when you have nothing to say but you long to write—something? You miss the feel of the pen moving across the page? Translating is a beautiful and intriguing way of deepening your writing skills while waiting for your own voice to return to you. But the art of translation also makes a formidable contribution to our literary culture. Think of it as a form of impersonation, of ventriloquism, of paint-by-number, of re-invention and re-creation. Do you…

NB: This class meets six Mondays: Oct 21, Nov 4, Nov 11, Nov 25, Dec 2, Dec 16 DEFINING AND ASSEMBLING YOUR MEMOIR You’ve been writing memories and stories and chapters for a while, and now it’s time to take stock of what you’ve produced and decide how it all fits together. In this class, you will use your own writing as we work as a group on the following: creating an inventory of your pieces; understanding and describing why you are writing your memoir and what…

NB: This is an 8-week class that meets every Thursday from October 24-December 19. No Class on Thanksgiving. Whether writing in a garret, ivory tower, or a fever pitch of blind faith, at some point a writer needs to see other people, preferably equally deranged. For people writing fiction or nonfiction who need regular, astute feedback on ongoing projects of any length, this class provides that hothouse work environment. We’re going to put our manuscripts on the table and ask…

Patrick Donnelly is the author of four books of poetry. Former poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, Donnelly is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place. Donnelly’s translations with Stephen D. Miller of classical Japanese poetry were awarded the 2015-2016 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. Donnelly’s other awards include a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program Award, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Margaret Bridgman Fellowship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference,…

This workshop will explore the defining characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of three modes of poetry: story (narrative), feeling (lyric), and thinking (meditative). We’ll examine, though close readings of several poems, how these modes can—and should!—combine into hybrid modes, in which each mode supplies qualities that the others lack. We’ll ask the question: if you were to give a close, objective reading to your own work as a whole, which of the three modes would you say is in the foreground?…

NB: This is a six week class. It will start on Wednesday October 30th and ends on Wednesday December 11th. Make-up week is Wednesday December 18th. No Class the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The focus of this course will be to sharpen and harness our senses through journaling, freewriting, daydreaming, people-watching, sketching, and more. All ways in which we can add many depths to our writing as we translate our ideas onto the page—no matter the genre—so that we can build narratives…

November 2019

Susan Choi’s first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction. Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award. Her fifth novel is Trust Exercise (April 2019). A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she teaches…

Submission Sundays is a free service to members of HVWC. Space is limited to 20 participants each session so please reserve your spot. One Sunday a month, 12:30-2:30 pm. Join host Mary Ann Scott for two hours of insider information on where and how to send your best work. Members can reserve a seat at the table of like-minded writers with a room of journals, advice on where to submit, moral and technical support, and everything you need to successfully…

NB: This is a six-week class for one hour each week from Sunday November 3rd-Sunday December 15th. NO Class on Thanksgiving weekend (December 1st). The HOME RUN PROJECT was developed over twenty years ago as an entertaining and interactive learning program to help children (grades 3-6) improve listening skills and focus, encourage the love of reading and creative writing, and at the same time strengthen crucial life skills. The program is based on the true stories in THE MACMILLAN BOOK OF BASEBALL…

NB: This is a six-week class that starts on Monday November 4th and ends on Monday December 9th. Make up date on Monday December 16th. Schmoozing with Your Muse: Getting More Energy into Your Poems Shouldn’t writing be fun? If you want to write poems that are risky, playful, or just plain alive, this workshop is for you. While reading model poems, exploring craft techniques, and identifying your own poetic concerns, you will receive practical and enjoyable tips for invigorating…

NB: This is a six-week class that starts on Tuesday November 5th and ends on Tuesday December 10th. This class is designed to inspire and support poets who want to return to writing, try new ideas, and refine their voices, whether for their own pleasure or to share with the public through readings and publication. It is open to beginning and emerging poets. The new poems in this class are both those you will write and those we will read…

NB: This is a six-week class that starts on Thursday November 7th and ends on Thursday December 19th. It will not meet on Thanksgiving. The Wide World: Translating Poetry There is nothing so beautiful as transforming a poem from a foreign language into your own language. In this class we will work on translating poems from any language into English. If you have not yet chosen a poet, I will help you choose your poet. At the start, we will…

Eight local poets and writers will read original work responding to war and resistance in current events, art, and history. Submit your original published or unpublished work to [email protected] Pamela Hart is author of the award-winning collection, Mothers over Nangarhar ,published in 2019 by Sarabande Books. She is writer-in-residence at the Katonah Museum of Art where she manages and teaches an arts-in-education program. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship as well as a fellowship from the…

Please join us for our warm and welcoming Open Write Nights, now at an easier-to-remember regular recurring monthly spot of Second Saturdays! Your hosts Michelle Thomas and Cassie Cartaginese will facilitate an evening of generative writing and community building at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. Prompts will be offered, refreshments served (that includes wine). Stories swapped. $10 for non-members; free for members (will be deducted at checkout when you log in). Become a member here.

Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…

As a response to a work of visual art, the ekphrastic poem inevitably goes far beyond description and often leads poet and reader into all sorts of associations, insights, memories, feelings, revelations. In our one-day intensive poetry workshop, we will examine and discuss how a poem (and poet) can respond to what is "out there" in a given work of art while at the same time surfacing the inner-life richness the artwork generates" within the poet's mind. There will be…

Hemingway rewrote the ending of A Farewell to Arms39 times. Asked what had stumped him, he replied, “Getting the words right.” Is that what it takes to be a great writer? Was Joan Didion right when she said that “grammar is a piano” you can “play by ear” but must be mastered, however you do it? Do you agree with Martin Amis that euphony—the music words make—is the essence of literary style, and that the only way to achieve it is by…

Submission Sundays is a free service to members of HVWC. Space is limited to 20 participants each session so please reserve your spot. One Sunday a month, 12:30-2:30 pm. Join host Mary Ann Scott for two hours of insider information on where and how to send your best work. Members can reserve a seat at the table of like-minded writers with a room of journals, advice on where to submit, moral and technical support, and everything you need to successfully…

Lauren Acampora's first novel, The Paper Wasp, was published by Grove Atlantic in June 2019. It’s been named a Best Summer Read by The New York Times Book Review, USA Today, ELLE, Town & Country, BBC.com, Daily Mail (UK), Thrillist, O Magazine, and Publishers Weekly. Her debut collection of linked stories, The Wonder Garden, was published by Grove in May 2015. It was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and an Indie Next selection, and was…

Please join us for our warm and welcoming Open Write Nights, now at an easier-to-remember regular recurring monthly spot of Second Saturdays! Your hosts Michelle Thomas and Cassie Cartaginese will facilitate an evening of generative writing and community building at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. Prompts will be offered, refreshments served (that includes wine). Stories swapped. $10 for non-members; free for members (will be deducted at checkout when you log in). Become a member here.

Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…

Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…

Our Open Mic Nights are held from 7:30-9:30 pm on the 3rd Friday of each month. Doors open at 7 pm for event starting at 7:30. Due to popular demand to participate, we've had to limit the amount of readers to 20. NEW: We're adjusting the policy to balance the demand at the door and online: There are now 10 performer slots up for sale online, placing you on the list in order of your purchase. The other 10 slots…